David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center. Orchestra (Seat M104, $42.50).
Program
Prelude a l'apres-midi d'u faune (1892-94) by Debussy (1862-1918).
Microfictions, Vol. 3 (2022) by Caroline Shaw (b. 1982).
Symphony No. 4 in D minor (late 1930s) by Price (1887-1953).
Recently I took advantage of a CYO sale and bought tickets to three concerts for the season. This was not one of those three, but I decided to take advantage of the $35 "any seat" offer. Anne and I had to look after the grandchildren in Hoboken while their parents were away for the weekend, so I went to the concert by myself.
Nowadays it seems every concert has a piece by a modern woman composer such as Caroline Shaw or Jesse Montgomery. Today's program also featured a symphony by Florence Price.
The other noteworthy aspect of this concert is that the New York Philharmonic, after in exile for about two year during the hall's renovation (compounded by COVID), has returned to David Geffen Hall. I was interested in seeing how the new hall worked.
Shaw's piece was commissioned as part of Project 19 to commemorate the 19th Amendment passed in 1920. Microfictions Volume 1 was premiered by the Miro Quartet in 2021, Volume 2, a cello solo for Alisa Weilerstein, has not been premiered. Volume 3 was first performed in Bergen, Norway on July 8, 2022, and this series is the US premiere of the work. One can conclude from the titles that all three would sound very different, and wonder if there is some sort of uniformity in the musical language used across the pieces. I heard Shaw's piece Blueprint more than six years ago.
Evidently there is this genre called "microfiction" where stories are limited to 280 characters. Shaw was trying to paint different micro images with each of the movements, although she took a lot more notes to do the job (or a word is worth a thousand notes?). Here an ensemble of eight singers would add texture to the music. Mostly vocalizations, other than a short unintelligible phrase here or there.
What do I think? The effect sounded interesting, but gets monotonous after a couple of minutes. It reminds me of Philip Glass, where the overall pace is quite slow as the music slowly changes direction through phrases that change imperceptibly as they get repeated. At about the 20-minute mark I was wondering how different things could be in the next ten minutes (Program Notes estimated time of 30 minutes). Things built quickly to a climax and the music ended, somewhat to my relief.
Roomful of Teeth is an octet of which Shaw is an original member. Shaw participated in the performance.
It is interesting to see if there will be eventually a "Caroline Shaw Sound," as distinct as Glass's.
After the performance of Caroline Shaw's Microfictions, Vol. 3. Shaw is the third person from the left (dark jacket, bowing). She was invited onto the podium also.
The young man seated next to me clearly enjoyed it. He owns the album, loves it, and was excited to see the piece performed live. I wonder if Shaw's appeal is also a generational thing.
Price certainly could write some very difficult passages for the orchestra. Her music is quite traditional, so languished in relative obscurity for a while until the current craze (for lack of a better word) to program women composers - especially minority women - into concerts. Fair or not, one thinks of Stravinsky, Prokofiev, or Shostakovich as the typical twentieth century composer; or more parochially Gershwin, Copland, and Ives. As a result, the best people can do is date this symphony to the late 1930s, and the piece was premiered in 2018.
Two noteworthy (as far as the Program Notes is concerned) facts. One is an oboe melody that's surprisingly similar to one in Dvorak's New World. Melodies of this kind permeated African American soundscape, and I agree (as the Notes implies) that different composers can reference them as they see fit. The other is the use of the "Juba dance" theme in the scherzo. The fragment included in the Notes is simple enough, but I frankly didn't catch it.
A musicologist can analyze Price's music for her composition techniques, her ability to organize, her use of different orchestral colors, and how she could weave the motivic material through the movements of her work like a silken thread (all these phrases found in the Program Notes), the fact of the matter is as a 20th century composition one expects something more avant-garde than this, and when compared with more traditional works not quite at the level of a Sibelius or Dvorak.
After performance of Price's Symphony. It's good to see New York Phil live again. There were a couple of notable personnel changes in the orchestra.
Unfortunately I didn't make it to Lincoln Center in time to hear the Debussy piece, which should be interesting to hear as the concert hall was newly renovated. To travel from Hoboken via bus and subway should take about 45 minutes to an hour. Bus 126 didn't show up at the stop for 15 minutes, Lincoln Tunnel was very congested, and the No. 1 train also took about 15 minutes to show up at the Port Authority Station. And it didn't stop until the 72 Street station which meant an eight minute additional walk. Any of these wouldn't have been a problem, but the combination made me miss the Debussy piece, and just barely got seated for the Shaw piece. (It took me less than an hour for the return trip.)
The young man next to me said the Debussy sounded great, although as a new resident of NYC this was his first concert at Lincoln Center. The Roomful singers used microphones, and I have nothing to compare the Price symphony with, so while I have no complaints about the acoustics, I am in no position to determine if I like it more.
I noticed the absence of Eileen Moon-Myers, and the return of Liang Wang. The formed resigned for personal reasons, and the latter after winning an arbitration case.
The common area outside the auditorium has a rather modern look it it. However, the general color scheme is a bit darker than I'd like.
In the old Avery Fisher Hall there was this slight unease about falling off the (inside) balcony. The new hall has solved that problem, at least for me.
The blue carpet on the steps (only a little shown in this photo) looks dated already, especially against these bright tiles adorning the walls.
Now one can sit behind the stage. One can somewhat relate the new layout with the old one.
It used to be simply Avery Fisher Hall. If the lobby, the theater, and the stage were named for other people, their names were certainly not prominently displayed. News reports say the theater was name Wu Tsai for a $50M donation, I wonder how much it cost for the lobby and the stage. In contrast, David Geffen is not seen inside the Hall at all. May be a case could be made that he gets some of the money back?
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